Paddlesurf Ireland Comp 1

Last weekend Paddlesurf Ireland held the first surf kayak competition of the year in Spanish point. There was a great turn-out at it. I dont know was it because of Paddlefest a few weeks ago or what but it was great to see all the new faces! We got good conditions for it too. The first rounds were held in the morning on Spanish Point beach in fairly weak, dribbly, maybe two foot surf. No one was airing in it but the conditions were perfect for everyone who was trying out a surf kayak for the first time. The new plastic boats that Paddlesurf Ireland recently bought from Exo kayaks got their first outing on the day, coming straight out of the packaging into the surf. I didn't get to have a go in one but loads of people had great things to say about them, and as an added bonus we won't have to be fixing them all the time like the composite demo boats! These boats will be around for the foreseeable future so if anyone ever feels like having a go in a real surf kayak give me or one of the other Paddlesurf committee members a shout and we'll sort you out!

After holding a quick AGM over lunch in the middle of the day (Aisling Griffin is now leader of the known universe, Mick Barry is her assistant and we're selling the composite demo boats. They're the highlights of that) we moved over to the reef at the Armada hotel for the finals of the IC, HP, Waveski and Junior classes. We got some great waves on the reef, 4-6ft faces with some nice steep walls. There was a pretty strong rip tho and there were some heavy wipeouts when people got caught slightly out of position when the sets came through! I had great fun in my heats and got some great waves, and ended up coming first in both IC and HP. Happy days! I gave waveski a go too, paddling the RTM Slide belonging to ULKC. I spent most of the heat having a disagreement with the ski over which way was up but we managed to resolve that for long enough to catch one wave in the 20 minute heat, in which I managed to pull a sweet off the lip top turn on a close-out section. It wasn't much but it was enough to persuade me that I want to paddle it a bit more over the summer and learn to air it properly!

We're properly getting into exam season here in UL now, but after that it's into a summer of working and paddling. I can't wait!